• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2018

The 99.1% of small dam and most of the levees in Korea are soil dam which can be constructed with lower cost and less effort compared with ones made of concrete. However, they are so vulnerable to overflow. Sudden collapses of these strucrues lead to increase flow rate rapidly, which may cause catastrophic problems in downstream regions. In this study, the experimental study on the collapse delay effect of riprap that was laid on slope of soil levee was carried out. A prismatic rectangular open channel was used and three different sizes of the riprap were installed on slope of a scaled earth dam. A new formula for the collapse time of the levee with the installation of riprap was presented, using the previous researches and the dimensional analysis. In this process, an unsteady flow condition was considered to derive the deviation time of the riprap. And additional experiments were conducted to understand the effect of reinforcement of riprap, and it was found that the reinforcement of riprap was more effective than twice sizing of intial riprap. If the collapse time is delayed, EAP (Emergency Action Plan) and forecasting can greatly reduce the degree of flood damage. Also, it will be meaningful that the results of this study are used for river design.